Shooting kids

As he rounded the corner of a building to help with the next bit of fence, he saw people looking out to the side.

Three figures were approaching. They could almost be mistaken for the children that were scattered everywhere, but they were too animated, and too curious about their surroundings, looking around and looking up at the moon, where the children of this place were focused wholly on the ritual's participants. They couldn't be Witnesses, because they had faces…

Animal faces, two of them wearing wide-brimmed hats, the other with a cord tying her hat to her neck.

The cat-faced girl had shadow clinging close to her cloak, to the point it was hard to make her out in the dark, not helped by the dark fur of her face. Her eyes flashed violet as she looked over everyone and everything. Her cloak was pulled over her hat, brim and point swept back, and made the hood more pointy behind her head.

The one with the fox's face was literally smoking, the smoke flowing down her body and cloaking most of it, forming a whorl at her feet. When traces of the smoke graced her orange-furred face, the glowing of her red eyes extended to the smoke. Her hair did something similar, fox's fur becoming long, tight curls with a faint red tint, the ends of the hair impossible to distinguish from the rising smoke.

She set those glowing eyes on Gabe, staring him down, until he looked away. He almost missed seeing her throw something down at the ground. When he looked up, he could see that the smoke that rolled off her and down to the ground had helped cloud a figure standing behind her. A scary looking guy who carried a heavy-duty gun.

Children immediately reached out, seizing the gun. The man kicked one, hard, saying something Gabriel couldn't make out, and the children backed off, growling.

*

He looked back, seeing if he had help. There was only the Deer girl, her dark blue cape fluttering behind her. In response to a shout, she twisted in the air, and caught a flying object, wincing as she caught it. Another object hit the ground to her right, and she scooped it up as she ran past.

She didn't have the hockey stick anymore. She brushed her hand along her cloak, and it straightened, going flat and hard.

"A piece for your potluck!"

Children mobbed her. They dropped off the roof, darted out from across the street. She leaped forward in sharp horizontal bounds, clearing ten or more feet at a time before her feet touched the ground. The children were faster.

Gunfire ripped out. The man with the gun. He picked off the kids as they got closer to the deer-faced girl. A few of them managed to get their fingers on her cloak, tugging and breaking her momentum, just in time for her to be in the bull's reach.

A flash, brilliant, shone out from behind Gabe. He saw the bull react, its good eye closing, head twisting away.

A gunshot hit a kid in Gabe's way. He looked back to see the Fox holding a gun.

Bullets were still flying and hitting children within arm's reach of the Deer, the noise of it so loud it rattled Gabriel's brain in his skull, the Deer met the bull's horns with the edge of her rigid cape, and the edge of the cape bit into the horn, embedding there. It didn't really stop the bull so much as it gave her something to hold onto that was between her and it, so its forward thrust pushed her back instead of impaling her. Twisting, she reached out, grabbed, and tore off a tatter of flesh at the neck.

He ducked under, and grabbed his own bit, stumbling and falling. Children around him were getting to their feet. They'd been shot, but only the impact of the bullets seemed to matter. They hadn't died or even been appreciably hurt.

He looked up to see the Deer standing over him, using the edge of her rigid cape to cut her bit of meat in half. Seeing he already had some, she turned and dashed away.

*

The Deer girl leaped, and her forward bound was uneven. She fell, rolling hard.

He followed, hobbling, one eye on the bull. People standing near the Deer girl didn't offer a hand.

Have to let the dead weight go, Gabe thought. It felt wrong. The girl who'd been crying and talking to the Cat didn't even have feet at this point. How could she help, next moon?

He skirted around rather than get involved.

I have to do this for seven more nights?

The children mobbed the Deer, clutching at her cape. The Fox and the man with the heavy gun opened fire, shooting to try to get rid of them, or keep them from getting that far.

- Stolen Away 2.1